Georgette Braun: Abuse wounds heal in foreign lands

Last month, she told thousands of children and teachers about it in South Africa.

She shared her story as part of the Protective Behaviors for Children program she developed and has presented over the past 10 years in several nations where the incidence of HIV and AIDS is high.

“I would not say it is a purging” of the past, Peterson told me about her efforts. “It is more a revelation of what I am capable of.”

Students and teachers have been “so receptive” to her message, Peterson added.

A Rockford native who now lives in Machesney Park, Peterson doesn’t have a college degree, so she can’t teach her program in the U.S. She spent 15 years working in radio in Beloit, Wis., and has written books about abuse.

Yet her protective behaviors program is similar to one used by the Carrie Lynn Children’s Center in Rockford. Both are 20-minute programs. Peterson teaches kids a song about the body’s most personal parts. The Carrie Lynn Center teaches that private parts are those covered by a swimsuit. No one has a right to touch those places unless they are keeping you clean or healthy, the kids learn.

Protective behaviors programs are considered so important that starting next school year, they’ll be required for all students in Illinois public schools, from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, with parental consent. Now, only secondary schools are required to offer sexual assault and abuse awareness education.

Abuse is most commonly reported by teachers, said Kathy Pomahac, executive director of the Carrie Lynn center, which typically receives 600 referrals a year about sexual and physical abuse.

Donations cover the cost of the Carrie Lynn center program. Peterson, however, has financed her program — from plane tickets to photocopying costs — on her own dime. The tally so far is about $30,000, a third of her retirement fund, Peterson told me.

Peterson makes overseas connections for her trips through her Bahai community. Her husband accompanied her on part of her South Africa trip.

During her April visit to a Catholic boarding school, she learned that it recently had been discovered that 26 children there had been sexually and physically abused by a staff member.

“The students were very attentive to the program, and they loved the ‘Private Place Song’ I taught them,” she told me as she sang the ditty and went through the motions of crossing her hands across those personal areas.

It doesn’t surprise Sharon Nesbitt-Davis that Peterson connected with students there. Nesbitt-Davis, education and engagement director for the Rockford Area Arts Council, has seen Peterson interact with many young people over the 15 years that Peterson has taught art classes for the council.

“It is unfortunate in this country they would not consider her qualified to (teach) unless she had those credentials,” Nesbitt-Davis said.

Peterson said one of her three children, a daughter, told her that she wished her mother had been able to go to college.

That way, she could be teaching her protective behaviors program close to home.

“What if I would have spent that $30,000 on a degree and not have taught anything all those years?” Peterson said.